Not being a follower of fashion I seem to be at the front of it now, pushing the boundary forward, that’s how it is since I bought a nice shiny new Motorola V70 last week and the number of people I’ve heard saying “oohhh” since is unbelievable and the better half hasn’t complained either.
I bought my phone via Cyren-Communications.co.uk which is on a previous Op if you fancy a look.
The Motorola V70 was released in the UK on the Orange network in April this year, yes only a few months back…
True it only cost me £10 on a £25 per month mobile tariff with Orange, but I would shop around as I’m sure the prices fluctuate as much as the reliability of the Scottish weather.
If you really want to you could pay around £100 in the shops for the phone without looking around. Or buy it for £420 without any contract.
With my V70 I got the standard stuff such as Sim Card, Charger, Phone obviously, standard battery and a nifty carry pouch thing which oozes sleekness itself…
The phone is totally unique by being the only phone with a rotating upper section which spins round and round and round, which is rotated to answer calls and look cool all at the same time. When the top of it
rotates it reveals something awesome….
A Blue Electro-luminescent display and translucent Keypad with blue backlight which makes an interesting look, okay my old V66 can change display colours but this V70 colour is just wow…I was out at the weekend and several people approached me to talk to me about my phone….you know the type the trendy designer clothes wearing socialites who just asked what it was and where they could get one……I was tempted to say it’s a prototype but hey they were drooling at me…or was it the phone? Don’t answer that!!!
So onto the boring bit normally of the features of the phone and technical stuff….
The size of the phone is comparable with all smaller phones with dimensions of 94 x 38 x 18.3mm. It fits in the pocket easily…
With the weight being a nice low 83 grams you can’t complain.
I’ve found talk time to be around over 2 hours and standby with the supplied battery to be around 4 days I would imagine as I talk all the time on the phone.
It is only a Dual Band phone which is where it beats my old V66 and it operates on the GSM 900 and GSM 1800 type airwaves.
You can have 16 Western European Languages or 11 Eastern Languages with Asian Support displayed instead of English.
You have a battery indicator, time and date, signal strength on screen as standard but it does have numerous other display icons like : GPRS Mode, Text Message Waiting, Roaming Indicator and Voice message indicator to name but a few…
With a display 96 x 64 pixels inverse image display with electro-luminescent backlight displays 3 lines of text, enough for any heavy text message reader. The screen is round which is cool to…
A single button for volume which is pressed either once to increase volume or once and held to decrease whilst watching the screen to see the display show the level changing sure beats the 2 button jobs on other mobiles.
You have voice dialling which is easy to use and I’ve found my west coast of Scotland accent is accepted and I can recall names easily…
The ringtones within the phone are a standard 32 with a further 32 customisable which is enough for anyone I feel. Along with different VibraCall alerts which makes your phone Vibrate instead of ring, handy if you are in a meeting…or in a club and wouldn’t hear the ringtone.
A feature I use is the Datebook which allows you to schedule you day in your mobile and create alarms with it. This is great a feature I used on my old V66 to…good for remembering Birthdays etc…never be in the doghouse again..
The Calculator is good when you need one and your phone has it…Also doubles as a currency converter…
A phonebook that has I’m told space for 500 names and numbers which just about keeps my contacts in it.
WAP, okay surfing on the phone I will not try but it does have WAP 1.1. This is an updated software version for WAP and it also has GPRS which is if you take it with Orange an always on connection which you just pay for the amount of stuff you download from the internet…it’s faster…
It has 3 Games, which I don’t really play although Blackjack is quite addictive. The other two : Mindblaster and Paddleball are a mind type game and a breakout type game which I find tedious and don’t play.
As I send more texts each month than the average person I would have numb fingers without the iTAP Predictive Text Input which is easy to control once you get the hang of it.
You can change the menu options and re-order what is first on the menu which is good if you always want to look at the Datebook as you can place it at the top instead of nearly at the end.
You can change the shortcut keys on the front to 2 choices of yours, I keep it at the Phonebook and Messages though as I use them most.
In the Settings menu you can change all the stuff you need to change like ring volume and type along with the security settings which include : Phone Lock, Automatic, Manual, SIM Card Lock, SIM PIN, SIM PIN2, Lock Application, Lock Keypad, Restrict Calls. As always they are important and you can limit access to just about anything on the phone…..good if you don’t want your better half to know how you remembered her birthday…so you lock the Datebook application.
I have found the phone to have exceptional call clarity, but then again I think that of all Motorola Phones. It does have EFR which is essentially Digital call Clarity.
It’s good that you can see who is calling before you rotate the bezel as the top section has a glass partition. You can press the ignore button and stop the call before you open it and divert the caller to the answerphone.
You can change the bezel ring on the phone to another 2 colours and these are available from Motorola only from what I’ve seen, although the colours are not great and I’m going to stick with the shiny silver colour…the other colours would not match they are Gold and blue from what I’ve seen and at £18 they can forget it.
The phone has a space for a headset at the top and they don’t supply one but I will use the V66 one I have.
You can link with your PC and synchronise your contacts and Datebook with Software they again don’t give you, but TrueSync is available as a download and I have the V66 copy anyway. It links with either a USB cable or by buying the docking station at a hefty price.
So I’ve raved for nearly a whole op now on how great it is…I hear you asking is there anything that whilst great could be better?
Two things I’ve noticed is the Aerial, again a Standard Motorola thing…they have not managed to put the Aerial inside the mobile but it’s not that big and it adds to the detail of the phone I guess….They also seem to be cutting costs by not supplying a free headset or USB connection lead and software that you did get with the V66…
Let me put it this way, It took me 3 days to give my friends the new number as my better half thought that she may have it….She being the woman she is and the woman of my dreams I did think twice about giving it to her, then I decided not to….Which is unusual for Alison as she has been happy with her Nokia 8210 for a year now….Her first words on seeing the phone were….Ohhhh…..Even my 2 cats sniffed the phone and the kitten, Katie, nudged it around for a bit, with an anxious me watching….
Thanks for reading and go buy one, sorry made a mistake there…Don’t buy it is complete rubbish and I want to be the only person with one…
by (2%):
25.07.2004 16:03
Fantastic review. Once i get my job and get paid, this is what i aim to buy.
23.03.2003 21:43
Nice review, nice title, nice ending :)
04.01.2003 11:17
I've just got one of these phones, and I think it is brilliant. It's really stylish and soooo small. Great op, might have to write one myself, when I have the time.